


And His Heart Was a Steel Blade

by Bluer_skies



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, BAMF John Watson, Emotionally Repressed, Gen, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1977681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluer_skies/pseuds/Bluer_skies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's a doctor, but he's also a soldier who has bad days. He just needs to remember that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And His Heart Was a Steel Blade

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm late to the post-reichenbach era since BBC Sherlock Season 3 is already out, but I came into the fandom late and missed it. So watch all the F***s I give as I post this here anyway. Enjoy.
> 
> (Warning: Unbetaed and not Brit-picked.)

_The moon shone across the battlefield_

_Over the blood and the man upon it_

_Who loved and bore his heart to bear_

_Watched the flesh burn and writhe_

_Tore the ashes from the pulsing thing_

_And found his heart was a steel blade_

_Tempered by fire and endless beating  
_

 

* * *

 

 

When Sherlock had jumped, words could not describe the pain that followed.

No one could understand the slow, steady rhythm of the muscle still beating determinedly in his chest, that kept his cheeks dry and his lips still.

No one could understand how much he’d loved Sherlock. His friend, his very best friend with his clever brain but idiot heart.

Clever, clever, stupidly clever Sherlock who loved puzzles and being dramatic and who sometimes seemed more alive and more _human_ than other human being that John had ever known.

John would find himself staring out the window of their flat (just his now, but his heart didn’t know that yet), down to the street where the words ‘SHERLOCK HOLMES IS A FAKE’ were painted across the sidewalk in cheerful yellow paint. Then someone’d walk over it and smudge the letters and he’d look down and find his hand stained with cold tea, dry and faintly sweet smelling and he would think that he didn’t take sugar.

His hands would shake for days after.

* * *

He was on leave.

Sarah had told him with her sad eyes to take as much time as he needed. She told him to get plenty of rest and to call her if he needed someone to talk to. She made such a sad face. John found himself irritated by it.

* * *

Three weeks since Sherlock had jumped and John didn’t dream, or if he did, he didn’t remember them.

He was glad for that.

* * *

He told Mrs. Hudson once that he felt like crying. That he felt raw and hurt and adrift.

She told him. “It’s okay to cry, dear. I won’t think any less of you for it.”

And he’d just closed his eyes and said. “I can’t right now. I just can’t. I’ve tried.”

She seemed to understand, and though the ever-present weight in his chest didn’t lift, he felt it settle more comfortably in the soft flesh of his heart.

* * *

When he woke one night and remembered the dream he’d had, he lay in bed choking though the sobs caught behind his teeth.

He burned under the sheets, under his skin where the weight in his chest became a writhing mass of fire. He threw the covers away, feeling trapped and wet with sweat where the sheets clung to him. He wanted to claw at his skin, into the supple flesh of his arms and the bones of his ribcage, to tear away the twisting veins and the gooseflesh.

In the shower he scrubbed his skin raw (bloody in some places) and sat in the pink-tinted water till it disappeared down the drain. He watched it go with steady eyes, oddly bright for all the shadows he could feel lurking behind them.

Long after the water had gone cold John dried himself, briefly letting himself be regretful of the bloody patches left on the towel before tossing it away.

Naked, chilled to the touch and halfway numb, John made himself a cuppa and sat in his chair, letting the water from his hair drip, drip, drip down the planes of his skin to pool beneath him.

He sat silently in the dark, until the first slivers of light fell through the window and warmed his skin.

* * *

Ella. He’d not visited her for more than a year and yet she seemed unchanged, still thin and pretty and professionally distant despite the compassion John knew lurked just beneath the surface- no matter how misplaced.

The cool detachment of her demeanor is what broke John in the end.

“Sherlock, my best friend- is dead.”

And he finally let the tears fall, slow and quiet and warm across his skin, under her detached, sympathetic gaze.

* * *

At Sherlock’s grave he gave a speech. The most honest he’s probably ever been with anyone (probably ever will be), for a dead man who’d probably known everything he had to say already and had a good scoff at it.

He said it anyway.

With each word he spoke he could feel the weight in his chest coiling tighter and tighter until it slid from the tender flesh of his heart and into its deepest fractures, where it could be cradled and soothed by the steady rhythm of his heart. A hard, unmoving thing making home at the core of him.

It was almost a relief if John was honest with himself.

* * *

He had his gun in his hands that night, weighted, solid and warmed by his skin. He examined it, inspected its surface with callused fingers, took it apart and put it back together until his hands ached.

As natural as breathing.

It had been such a long time since John had felt this way, as though the gun in his hand could whisper its secrets to him. An extension of himself, in every sense of the word.

He felt dangerous.

When he finally put the gun down it was to take up his phone and set to work with tweezers and magnetic chip in hand. He weaved through wires and cogs with the surety of years of experience, replacing hardware and programming alike.

He would have 18 minutes before the wires burned out and destroyed the phone’s internal workings. 18 minutes to set things in motion before his call could be traced.

When he was done, John made the call he never dreamed he’d have to make.

“It’s three in the morning you twat. What do you want?” Came a low, gravelly voice from the other end, rough with sleep (and booze), so familiar after so many lost years it nearly made John’s gut wrench. It was the kind of voice that grated on one’s nerves if you didn’t know the person.

“Gram. It’s John. John Watson.” He said, clenching his fist around the soft blue scarf in his hand, letting it sooth him with its presence.

“I know a lot of Watsons and even more Johns, son.” Came the tired response.

John gave a longsuffering sigh, wrapping the long cloth around his knuckles and fidgeting with the ends. “The short one.”

A grunt of recognition was heard, as was the rustle of sheets as the man sat up. “Johnny boy. It’s been two- no, three years. Thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“Bit hard to forget when a woman’s face melts off to become a man’s.” John recalled with a brief smile.

A low chuckle. “You’re expression was worth Susan’s lost.”

With a small shake of his head, John curled the scarf under his chin and tucked it against the hollow of his throat. Breathed in the masculine scent of it.

“That aside, I need a favor.”

“And what would that be?” Came the gruff reply.

Without hesitation. “I need to disappear.”

“Never thought I’d live to see the day straight-laced Watson asked me for that kind of favor. What happened? Got yourself in debt? Trouble with the law? Overbearing Wife?”

John found he had to unclench his fingers from around the scarf, less he rip the precious fabric. “Moriarty.” He said coldly, so deceptively calm.

There was an ominous silence. John swore he could feel the other man’s shock through the phone like a physical blow.

“…Oh. Well, that’s something isn’t it? Any particular reason you’re involved with that loon?” Gram said slowly, cautiously, but sounding far more awake than before.

The weight in John’s chest, _burned_. “He killed my best friend.”

Another silence, longer than the last. John could hear the other man striking a match, lighting a sig and taking a deep drag. And just like that, John knew that he’d hit his mark.

“What do you need?”

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually going to be the prologue to a full-length story, but this tidbit keeps distracting me from prior obligations and I needed to remove the temptation. So there it is as a stand alone oneshot (and when I finish my other story I may continue on this).


End file.
